A note on Develop has further indications that Battlefield 3 will not be released through Steam, as speculation mounts that DICE's military shooter sequel will not appear on Valve's download service. They quote a comment from a report from financial research firm Baird based on a meeting with GameStop: "The upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam," Baird says GameStop executives told them. "Given Steam's dominance – and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application – publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative." Thanks Computer and Video Games.

Verno wrote on Jul 19, 2011, 13:31:Yeah because pricing and revenue models haven't gone through some changes recently or anything Is that kind of like your frankly absurd notion that Steam will takeover the entire gaming industry because some people on a forum said they only buy games through Steam? You show those people a sale at any other service that beats Steam prices or features and I guarantee the majority are whipping out their credit card regardless of what they say.

If you mean the change to $60 that was a collective decision between all publishers when the 360 launched. If you want to investigate them for collusion I wouldn't blame you. That has really nothing to do with the idea that because EA only sells through EA they can charge whatever they want, irrespective of the games market as a whole. That's a ridiculous notion. We know for a fact that TOR will be Origin only and if you think for one minute it will cost more than $60 for the standard edition you're crazy.

And yes, when a Steam release is pretty much required to make good money on the PC from smaller games I think that has a danger of making Steam way too powerful since they have an approval process. In that scenario, which could argue already exists, Valve basically decide what is a success and what isn't, and therefore what is made and what isn't. I know you think that's batshit crazy talk but I have never seen a persuasive argument to the contrary from you.